Genealogy

What are you trying to accomplish and where is your frustration?

I just peeked at your tree, and discovered that it contains only you. I recommend that you build out your tree as much as you can.

What are the options on your narrow list?

By "build out your tree as much as you can", I mean build it out according to the family data that you have at hand right now.

Hello Josh,
I doubt that posting a photo is going to yield any results. I would suggest as the others have to add more information to your tree, and perhaps also take a DNA test and see if you have any close matches. For the DNA test, I would suggest either Ancestry.com, MyHeritage.com or Familysearch.org. Of the three, Familysearch.org is the only pure DNA testing site, and doesn't require a yearly subscription to let you access the site from time to time.

I think DNA test is gonna prove true relations easiest

There’s not many people around me and there’s many holes. Maybe it’s something that I wasn’t supposed to look into but I feel an obligation to know for the future.

Do as Lew Miller suggests., that’s sound advice. Good luck

I have taken the DNA test and have it linked so I’m curious why it’s not able to seen. I have it linked also.

Is anyone interested in looking at my family tree to help me understand through the private person disconnects and just what it is that I have was important enough for me to not know of my lineage good or bad. Had a lot of unexpected and unusual experiences since I dived into the family tree process and MyHeritage and geni are different in what they claim.

I’m just confused is all and trying to protect the ones around me.

Hi Josh,

As others have pointed out, there isn't a lot of information in your post about what you are trying to do or what you see as the options. I do feel for you, most of my life has been about multiple options and trying to figure out which direction was best (I'm pretty sure this holds true for just about everyone:).

I see that you have a few people on your tree. Apparently some are alive and they can likely provide you with some clues. However, your first step is simple; identify what your objective(s) are, both long and short term. As an example, you may have a long term objective of identifying when the Small family immigrated to the U.S. A shorter term objective might be interviewing living Small family relatives about what they remember about family members; parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins... If your family is like mine, all of their remembrances won't likely be 100% accurate, but they do provide some core of information about the family, locations, key dates, and relationships.

Secondly, mine the information available on the various genealogy sites. Using the information you already have there is likely a wealth of information about those people with clues to others. Marriage licenses, obituaries, births, census, etc. all can provide ready information about family members and provide leads to other sources. Also, don't forget newspapers. We joined newspapers.com and have found a gold mine of tidbits that have led us to interesting facts and research directions we probably wouldn't have taken otherwise.

I noticed a couple of people suggested DNA. Remember their are three kinds of DNA tests; autosomal, Y and mitochondrial. All lead you in slightly different directions. I can't speak for others, but in my case (I've done all three) the results have been interesting but not super helpful. Autosomal matches have either taken me to people that I already had in my tree or knew where they fit in or with no obvious path to matching up ancestors. Even long conversations have not helped clear up these dead ends from seemingly closely related ancestors. Y-DNA has give me few hits, none of which carry my surname and only two of which had the same surname. Same story, conversations with various of the most closely matched have turned up no commonalities. Mitochondrial DNA has had a ton of hits, again with very few matching up to anyone in the tree (and this tree is extensive having been professionally done with significant add on findings from us amateurs).

Biggest thing is, when you hit a roadblock turn around and find an alternative path!

Ed

I believe I have a resemblance to Raleigh Colston and German royal families. Genealogy shows links to basically every single country with skews in Uk having more and many ancestors from New Zealand, Australia, and also some ashkenazi Jewish. Hopefully this won’t impact my actually physical life but the resemblances from some known prominent public ally disliked individuals is very very similar.

@Josh, If you have Jewish heritage, there should be a chapter of a genealogy group near you. Get onto JewishGen.org.Familysearch.org, and Ancestry.com are also good for research. Start typing names of relatives into these sites; learn about each relative you find. It's good to have the paper trail before A DNA test if possible. Look for passenger lists, death and birth certificates, census decades up to 1950, immigration. You do need names of grandparents and g-grandparents. I knew none of these people but built a large typed outline of 20 pages for just one grandparent's line. You do not need to form a physical tree at first. Just make folders for each branch on your computer, and put the relatives under that person, and so on.
MyHeritage and others show places where people who you share DNA lived. Doesn't mean your direct ancestors lived there. Many Sephardic Jews moved to Western Europe and married there and then migrated elsewhere. Can you get someone at a library to refer you to a group or start you with the computer research there. Let us know if this helps.

I seem to be many different lineages but as for my surname I don’t believe it to be my surname. Which I’m fairly certain it’s not due to finding people who look identical with family names. I don’t believe it’s Sephardic Jewish but it’s one of the least of my %

Thank you all for helping!

I’m confused. What does the pic show? What are you trying to prove by attaching a pic?
The Geni staff can help a lot, but get as many relatives are you have first hand knowledge of….add to the tree. Do you know any relatives that are also researching. They can help too. Happy hunting

Bill Brown

I was just trying to show a resemblance and find the link. Didn’t know if anyone had any idea.

Well it seems, from Geni's calculations from shortest in-law relationship
<Private> is your 6th great aunt's niece's husband's aunt's husband's 7th great nephew.
Shortest blood relationship
<Private> is your 16th cousin 7 times removed.
I know of my Brown line, taking me back to my Scottish roots, and the Daniel's being slave owners. Beyond that it's unresearched for me.
I find Geni and parent company My Heritage unreliable for not verifying sources. E.g. someone added a widower going back to the UK and having more children but that widower died in NZ and so its likely profile builders assumed because Joseph Bennett had the same middle name as this Bennett appearing in a Welsh census. And it seems My Heritage is harassing me to correct likely error. I'd rather a My Heritage curator do the research and correction.
But My Heritage matching profiles are sometimes useful in adding extra family details.
Other than that - others mention Family Search (Latter Day Saints) which I find useful for cross referencing plus, they did amazing work in going around all the Parishes in the UK and getting microfiche file copies of christenings, weddings and deaths. It is interesting how the surname spellings can vary, through people being illiterate and the Church curator writing what they heard. Part of the challenges of Genealogy and how it can eat into your time.
I also like and use Wiki Tree, which is free to use (I think Ancestry.com is a sponsor as a marketing plan). Wiki Tree work on the premise of one profile per person (unlike the My Heritage business model) and insist on verification. Someone on Wiki Tree recently added information of the cemetery for my Great Grandfather's nephew (Victoria Cross recipient) death in WWII - and I have a photo in my inherited family collection of Claud Raymond as a 3 1/2 year old with his mother on the Isle of Wight.
So you'll learn information about your family connections, which may take time to process - e.g. a fellow family researcher of our Brown line, sent me a copy of her birth certificate as an adopted child with her mother listed but not her father. Later DNA shows a match between her and I and it had to come from my 2nd cousin who had been into family research and shared a lot of his research with me before he died. So my 2nd cousin once removed has now been revealed and accepted by her siblings as a child of their parents before they got married and adopted out.
So pace yourself in your research and as Carol Robins suggested link up with a genealogy group so you can talk through issues and get clarity in your own mind.

Don't give up.

I agree, start with the information you know 100% and build from there. I don't like to accept ancestors without at least 3 verified, which I know isn't always possible. Your male DNA you can register and verify with DNA. You have to join the group and then give admins access to your dna before they can add you to the group. I like Family Search, Ancestry, Fold3 and Find-A-Grave as resources. You can also write or go online to get access to most birth/death/marriage and burial records to verify. Best advice I can give is Verify, Verify, Verify! God Bless

John said only you are on your tree. If you put mom and dad then grandpa and grandma it will be much easier to find others.

I have an Ancestry.com subscription that has really helped me & I recommend them because of a lack of problems. It's often entertaining with the info I've found! I've done the DNA through them & although I'm glad I did it, I found that I was just a very plain white chick from western European countries. Go ahead & add what you already know--it's very easy to go back & change or add anything later on Ancestry if you need to.
I've had a bad experience with FamilySearch in that ANYONE can add ANYTHING on to your tree. My FamilySearch tree now has incorrect info that I can't remove easily, & this is how trees can be filled with incorrect info, leaving you looking like your info is unreliable. I'll never trust them again.
No need for photos just yet. You'll see quite a few on Ancestry.com.

Since when did Family Search start doing DNA? Family Search had me going in wrong directions as they historically only follow documents. How many families are going to document incest or infidelity? My two grandmothers had undocumented sperm-donors, not incest, just boyfriends. Documents would never had found that.
Family Search is great for finding documented families. Problem is: sperm likes to wander around and impregnate eggs. You can't undo the Family Search docs, without banging a few heads.

Get your DNA tested! Find your DNA first cousins, find who in their trees are the common- ancestor. Then assemble your tree. You can't share DNA with someone if you don't have a common ancestor.
I worked for a couple years on my father's tree! Spent a ton of money on research. Found a matching tree with a cousin on the paperwork! DNA got cheaper to do so I bought a cheap "Y" DNA test. That family wasn't my family, they were a completely different haplo-group. But Family Search keeps insisting they are my family.

Their should be no confusion. DNA cannot lie, paperwork can. Get on GEDmatch, FTDNA, My Heritage and Ancestry.com. 23&me does a cheap "Y" and gets a haplo-group that can guide a little as to your male family line. Learn how to use the existing research.

FTDNA does the BigY700. It's worth it. Dante Labs does it too.

You need to do more research and begin a tree

Start with yourself, adding your basic info, ie.: Your full name, date and place of birth. From there, using the appropriate arrows, add your parents info, doing the same info as you did for your name, ie.: Their full names, adding your mother's maiden name, dates and places of birth. Then, if you have any siblings, add them in the same way, slowly building your personal tree.
Don't be afraid, just don't add anything you don't feel appropriate as current addresses, emails or anything like that. You can share your tree with them so they will feel a part of your history.
As time goes by you may find new info on family for your tree.
note: You do not have to add your or anyone's DNA info if you don't want to, but it is another tool to help you grow your family tree.
When I started mine I had three generations. Ten years later I have so many people that I am related to in the past but also the present.
It can be hard work but also fun. Just enjoy yourself and watch your tree grow. But you must out the work into it yourself. I hope this helped.

Right now Family Search.com is having roots tech and it's free to build your tree. The Latter Day Saints own it. Check it out .

Josh, I've read the responses you've already received and I don't think I can tell you anything else that you've already received. You have a wealth of information that been shared with you but thank you for asking, Jan

Thank you all for your help! I very much so am appreciative of everyone who took the time to help. Thank you!

Like all the other folks suggested. Start with you, then your parents, wife's parents, then grandparents. You won't or maybe not have all the information. This can be added later.